China’s Responses to the US War on Terror: A Perspective and Agenda of Internet Geopolitics

Abstract

AbstractDrawing on ‘popular geopolitics’ and ‘Internet geopolitics’, this study examines China’s responses to the US war on terror by comparing print narratives with Internet discussions. The results indicate that Chinese print media embraces a different but unanimous narrative strategy than the Anglo‐American discourses on the war on terror, which rejects a binary construction between terrorism and the US but instead portrays both as playing violent and immoral roles. This study also finds that Internet discussion has greatly challenged such geopolitical expression, which is reflected in the emergence of both resistant and ensemble discourses in the online community. These findings demonstrate that the Internet as a new type of information technology has changed the organisation and expression of geopolitical power and incorporates broader actors into its structure. It is valid and necessary to look at the Internet as an important variable affecting the current geopolitical landscape. In this sense, this paper enriches the literature of critical geopolitics and, to a notable extent, signifies a broader agenda for Internet geopolitics.